Pinot Gris

Amisfield Winery is based in Pisa while its beautiful cellar door shop and restaurant overlook Lake Hayes, just outside of Queenstown.

This winery makes a more diverse range of whites than most in Central Otago and the Pinot Gris is a light bodied, refreshing expression of this white grape from a cool climate. Spice, fresh fruit and a long finish all make this an extremely good quality Pinot Gris.

Here's a Pinot Gris that tastes noticeably drier than many and is all about fresh pure, white fruit flavours of pear and peach. The refreshing acidity comes from the cooler climate grapes contained in the wine, which is made from a blend of grapes grown in three sub regions of Marlborough. The cool climate Awatere Valley has 73% with the remaining 17% from the Waihopai Valley and 10% from Kekerengu on the southern coast.

Grapes were fermented at cool temperatures to preserve fruit freshness and dry flavours. 

Residual sugar is 3.8 grams, making it dry in style - and also in flavour. 

The story of Astrolabe

Diversity, history and family ownership are among the reasons to try the outstanding range of wines from Astrolabe, which was founded in 1996 in Marlborough by winemaker Simon Waghorn and his partner in life and wine, Jane. 

Simon has forged a reputation for being one of New Zealand's most respected producers of aromatic white wines after winning an almost embarrassingly long string of awards for his Sauvignon Blancs. He has also forged a name for adventurously diverse winemaking - he produces dry flinty whites from the most southern vineyard in Marlborough at Kekerengu on the coast about an hour's drive south of Blenheim. He is the only winemaker to produce wines from here. 

He is also one of the few in this country to make Albarino, Chenin Blanc and a consistently outstanding range of wines from the organically certified hillside sloping site that is the Wrekin Vineyard in Marlborough. 

The winery remains family owned and is now run by two generations, including Simon and Jane as well as their adult daughters. 

Ata Rangi Pinot Gris is modelled on the classic style of wines from Alsace in France and is made from vines which are now over 23 years old. 

The grapes are fermented in older oak barrels, which provide texture and body to the finished wine, which tastes spicy and has flavours of beeswax, lemon curd and fresh pastry, all of which add complexity and softness to this smooth off dry white from one of Martinborough's first four wineries.

The name Ata Rangi is Maori for dawn sky and was chosen to portray the new beginning that the start of this winery represented for founder Clive Paton in the late 1970s.

B Pinot Gris is a new Martinborough wine that tastes bone dry and crisp with subtle white fruit flavours such as nashi pear and notes of lemon juice, without a hint of sweetness. That's what makes it so refreshing as a year round aperitif style of wine. 

It's made by winemakers Raffael and Christine Burki and the name B on the bottle comes from their surname. 

The grapes in this wine come from Hamden Estate, a small vineyard south of Martinborough village. 

Ramato is Italian for copper coloured and describes this deliciously tasty Pinot Gris made with skin contact to gain its lovely amber-orange hue and tasty freshness. 

Jeremy Corban and Katherine Jacobs founded Big Sky Wines in the Te Muna Valley, Martinborough, in 2005. They have since expanded their small vineyard, which is predominantly planted in Pinot Noir and also has a little Sauvignon Blanc, which they give extra textural complexity to with a little time in old oak on lees.

One of our biggest sellers and easy to see why with its fresh, soft, smooth body and white pear flavours. A lively, lovely off dry Pinot Gris made in a super popular style, offering good value. 

This wine is made exclusively with hand harvested fruit from the 18 year old vines on the Blackenbrook Home block where the vines grow on Moutere clay soil covered by a layer of sandy loam. The wine making is extremely gentle with whole bunch pressing, cool fermentation, minimal pumping over, extended lees contact and using gravity to move the wine when required.

8% of the wine is aged in oak to add mouthfeel and complexity and there is no fining pre-bottling.

 At 5.7g/l of residual sugar this is dry in style.

Tasting Notes
Our Blackenbrook Pinot Gris 2019 displays delightful pear, quince and spice notes framed by a silky texture, a splash of sweetness and gentle acidity. Ideal serving temperature 15 degrees.

Silver - New Zealand Wine of the Year Awards

4 1/2 Stars Michael Cooper

This powerful wine is still very youthful. It has strong peach, pear, lychee and spice flavours with a distinct touch of complexity, slight sweetness balanced by fresh acidity and a scented bouquet.

A field blend of Pinot Blanc from the Bentwood Vineyard and Pinot Gris from the neighbouring Cross Hares vineyard. Picked on the same day.

Whole bunch Pinot Gris placed gently in amphora with direct press Pinot Blanc pressed atop. Fermented on skins in amphora for 6 months. The wine was then settled and blended with a puncheon of pinot blanc.

Apricot yoghurt, soft chalky tannin, crystallized ginger, peach ice tea salivating acidity.

Carrick Pinot Gris is a dry, fleshy wine with impressive weight and texture in the mouth. It's made using whole bunch fermentation with wild yeasts with lees stirring to enhance complexity in the wine, 60% of which was fermented in older French oak barrels with lees aging for six months.

This is a lovely structural white wine that sits nicely in the glass, perfect as a late afternoon aperitif.

The Charles Wiffen Pinot Gris, is grown in the ?Home? Block, which surrounds the Homestead on the farm, which was built in 1882. The block is spur pruned, with a targeted yield of 9 tonnes to the hectare. The grapes are machine harvested in the cool of the morning, transported to the winery, where it is gently destemmed, pressed and clarified. The juice is then fermented with selected yeasts, with the fermentation stopped at the desired residual sugar content.

This estate grown Pinot Gris exhibits aromas of beurre bose pear, hazelnut and white lily with hints of meyer lemon and rosewater on the palate and is refreshingly textured.

RS 5.5 g/L

Ripe quince, white pear and nectarine flavours combine in this totally dry, medium bodied Pinot Gris from Central Otago, which is beautifully well suited to producing tasty and dry Pinot Gris, as this newcomer shows. It tastes crisp, refreshing and lightly spicy with flavours of white pears and red apples. It is part of the new Dicey Wine brand is the brainchild of the well experienced Dicey brothers, Matt and James, whose parents were among the pioneers of viticulture and winemaking in Bannockburn, Central Otago, when they co-founded Mt Difficulty Wines.

Residual sugar is less than one gram per litre and alcohol is 14.5%.

This dry, full bodied, flavoursome Pinot Gris is something special from the deep south and was fermented with skin contact in amphora to bring a new dimension to one of the most popular grapes in the world right now. Domaine Rewa has hit a new high with the small production of this lovely wine.